Obama calls global warming a ‘fact,’ ignores flat temps

10:47 PM 01/28/2014 | Politics

Michael Bastasch | Energy Editor

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During the State of the Union, President Barack Obama stated that global warming is a “fact” and that the science was settled. But Obama’s remarks ignore the fact that global temperatures have not significantly risen in 17 years.

“The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way,” Obama said. “But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. And when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say, ‘Yes, we did.’”

His speech came on a cold winter’s night of 18 degrees Fahrenheit with windchill, according to the Weather Channel. His climate warning government climate data showed that the so-called “pause” in global warming continued through 2013 — making it the 17th year with no warming.

“There’s never been any assertion that climate didn’t change — the idea that somehow this is something new to the 21st century is absurd,” Anthony Watts, a climate skeptic who runs the science blog Watts Up With That, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “And, as science itself has demonstrated through history, it is never settled, it is always searching for new information, retesting, and sometimes discarding old ideas.”

“Saying the science is settled is as ridiculous as the famous quote attributed to Lord Kelvin who said in 1900 ‘There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement’,” Watts added.

NASA found that 2013 was tied with 2009 and 2006 for the seventh warmest year on record and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ranked 2013 as the fourth warmest year on record, tying with 2003.

“The trends over the last 10 to 15 years compared to the trends before do appear to be lower than they were,” said Gavin Schmidt, climatologist with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Last year, the average temperature was 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit — 1.1 degree Fahrenheit warmer than the mid-20th century baseline temperature. NASA says the average global temperature has risen about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880.

“We’ve been looking at this in separate work and partially it seems to be a function of internal variability in the system, so the fact is that we’ve had more La Nina-like conditions over the last few years compared to earlier on in the 2000s or in the late 1990s,” Schmidt said.

The country has recently been hit with frigid weather that brought temperatures down to 25 degrees Fahrenheit below zero in some areas of the country on Tuesday night. The cold weather has sparked criticism of the Obama administration’s insistence that the earth is still warming and the U.S. needs to use fewer fossil fuels and more renewable energy.

“Taken together, our energy policy is creating jobs and leading to a cleaner, safer planet,” Obama said. “Over the past eight years, the United States has reduced our total carbon pollution more than any other nation on Earth. But we have to act with more urgency – because a changing climate is already harming western communities struggling with drought, and coastal cities dealing with floods.”

“Paraphrased, ‘I have learned nothing during my years in office, and I’m hoping you haven’t either,” Chris Horner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told TheDCNF. “OK, I don’t tell you to look to Spain to see how my ‘green energy’ policies work out, anymore. That one left a mark. However, I will continue to prop up failures, at spectacular cost to you per temporary job and Potemkin company; I will still work to punish what works for the sin of abundance.”

“And If you are listening to this stranded in winter weather that we’ve promised for years was ‘the first casualty of global warming,’ well, that’s merely a reminder of your harmful love affair with automobility’,” Horner added.

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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.